Should Markets Fear a President Trump?

Would markets be in trouble if Donald Trump were elected president? While they might take a hit, a Trump presidency could yield opportunity as well, according to The New York Times .

“The conventional wisdom,” says the Times, is that stocks would fall sharply in the wake of such an electoral upset. Economist Simon Johnson, at MIT, envisions not just a market crash but a global recession caused by Trump’s anti-trade policies.

Another scenario is that investors would gradually suss out his policies’ likely effect on the economy and respond opportunistically. Certain sectors—think oil and healthcare—could spike upwards. Specific companies could suffer: Trump has criticized the proposed merger of Time Warner and AT&T.

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Meanwhile, all eyes would be on Trump as he prepared to nominate a Fed chair not named Yellen, the Times notes. The candidate’s exact level of interest-rate hawkishness is unclear, however. Of course, there’s a case to be made that presidents have less impact on the markets than is typically assumed. Market analyst Peter Boockvar recently wrote that “it will likely not matter who the next president is when it comes to where markets go,” the Times notes.

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